Blood on a N.S. church door leads to break-in suspect

If the thieves were looking to wash away their sins, they were breaking into the right place.

It was Dec. 6, 2022, when the burglar alarm went off on the rear door of Sonlife Community Church on Windmill Road in Dartmouth at about 8:20 p.m. A caretaker checked it 15 minutes later, found the door secure and cancelled the alarm.

But when the woman who operates a daycare in the building arrived the next morning, Brittany Markey noticed one of the doorknobs had been forced off a basement storage closet and there appeared to be blood on the door, Halifax Regional Police Det.-Const. Brad Murray said in a warrant application.

Pepsi and chocolate milk

“Markey observed her lunch from the prior day, a bottle of diet Pepsi and a 4L jug of chocolate milk was on the table in the hall area of the basement,” Murray said.

“Markey observed one of the office doors to be forced open and that a second appeared to have been attempted to be forced but was still secure.”

She also noticed an apple juice box on top of a set of shelves that hadn’t been there the day before.

Broken glass

Markey walked upstairs to the cathedral portion of the church, noticing glass on the carpet near the entrance that faces Windmill Road, said the detective.

“Markey further observed the window to be smashed with glass laying on the inside and outside of the door.”

She contacted the pastor, Chuck Kelades, who phoned police and met an officer at the church.

Kelades noted that a computer monitor and tower were missing from the rear of the cathedral area.

The pastor showed police surveillance video of a man trying to get into the church’s gym entrance. The suspect was wearing an orange high-visibility coat, blue jeans, work boots and a tuque, Murray said. “A taller male is observed on video dressed in darker clothing.”

Targeted computer

There was a chunk of concrete in the grass below the church’s Windmill Road entrance, which police figured the thieves had used to break the glass in the front door.

“The suspects targeted (the) computer at the back of the cathedral used to livestream some of the services,” said the detective.

“The suspects then proceeded to the basement where they used some sort of pry to break the knob off the storage closet, as the door had a number of marks on it where forced entry was attempted and a few streaks of blood.”

The thieves “appear to have helped themselves to left over lunch, diet Pepsi and chocolate milk, which was contained in the fridge and unopened the day prior,” Murray said.

They had tried to force open office doors in the church basement, but those “remained closed and locked.”

DNA search 

The detective believed the thieves set off the alarm as they fled out the basement daycare door.

A forensic identification officer swabbed the blood left behind on the basement storage closet door, looking for DNA, as well as the mouth of the pop bottle and chocolate milk container.

It wasn’t until March 6, 2023, that results came back from the laboratory, showing that one of the samples taken from a door matched Jason Anthony David Joyce, 42, a known offender in the national DNA databank.

When the detective checked into Joyce’s whereabouts, he learned his suspect in the church break-in was already behind bars at the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility.

Joyce was due to appear in court to face 14 charges including mischief, possession of stolen property, and criminal harassment, the detective said in his warrant application, dated Aug. 3, 2023.

‘Reasonable grounds’

“I have reasonable grounds to believe that the forensic DNA analysis of a bodily substance from Jason Joyce will provide evidence about whether” the blood found on the church door was his, the investigator wrote in information to obtain a warrant filed at Dartmouth provincial court.

Murray convinced a judge to grant a warrant to get a sample of Joyce’s blood to compare his DNA to the evidence found in the church. An officer took the sample last October.

But Joyce isn’t facing any charges with an offence date of Dec. 6, 2022.

Probe still open

“The investigation is ongoing,” Const. John MacLeod, who speaks for Halifax Regional Police, said this week in an email.

“Anyone with information in relation to the incident is asked to contact police.”

A judge sentenced Joyce to 88 days of intermittent custody at a provincial jail and 18 months’ probation Aug. 11, 2023, for a theft under $5,000 that took place between Sept. 17, 2018, and Nov. 30, 2022.